Some Things I’ve Learned on the Way

Where am I

I have long thought that prepositions are the most annoying feature of English for students of that language. Why is it “in the night city of time”? Why am I “in the house” but “at home”? Why is “of example” wrong, but “by way of example” is correct?

Thinking about thinking

So how to translate different conceptions of the English verb “to think” into Chinese? I don’t claim to have entirely resolved it, but this is how I, well, think about it.

Tone-deaf

One of the most important tasks in becoming truly fluent in a language is to pronounce its sounds properly.

The holiday season in Taiwan

In this piece I share some thoughts on Christmas (聖誕節 Shèngdànjié) and New Year’s (新年xīnnián) in Taiwan.

Act natural

In this article I want to discuss several aspects of Chinese sentence construction that don’t always come naturally to English-speaking students.

Leading to frustration

They are 使得(shǐde), 讓(ràng) and 令(lìng). They all seem to mean “lead to,” “induce,” “bring about.”

Speech of parts

But in Chinese, apparently, these components fall into two categories, with different words.

Searching for the meaning of “找”

As you can see already, English and Chinese words do not exactly match one to one.

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